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Strategic Advisory Committee

BACKGROUND

The Affinity Gold Strategic Advisory Committee was established February 2014 for the purpose of engaging and providing the Executive Management and Board of Directors, of the Company, with expert guidance, knowledge, insights into current and emerging opportunities and access to key resources to further support the Company’s overall business development and growth strategy towards becoming the entrepreneurial industry leader and delivering profitability to its shareholders. The Strategic Advisory Committee is comprised of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, executives and investors with expertise and international experience in finance, engineering, law, social and environmental responsibility, clean energy technologies & applications and business development related to the extractive industries.

 

 

PURPOSE

The purpose of the Strategic Advisory Committee is to assist and guide the leadership of the Company in achieving its mandate to become a world-class forward-thinking mining company that challenges the industry’s long-held status quo by demonstrating new and higher standards across socio-economic, environmental, political and operational best-practices of collaboration with key stakeholders. The Advisory Committee will, also, act as an external sounding board on a range of topics such as corporate social responsibility, sustainable development, water, energy, climate change, security and human rights.

 

 

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES & FOCUS

The committee will advise and act as a sounding board on key relevant issues providing critical expertise, knowledge, contacts and guidance to the Executive Management Team on:

 

  • Resource and revenue generation and collaboration with community, government and private business on strategic benefit-sharing opportunities within the immediate geographic area of interest as well as with national and international stakeholders and beneficiaries.

 

  • Promoting and increasing the Company’s procurement and growth opportunities that further progress towards environmental sustainability, social responsibility and development and overall corporate profitability.

 

  • Creating education, training and employment opportunities and social equity within and surrounding areas of investment and future opportunities of interest.

 

  • Strengthening environmental protection and stewardship with the goal of setting higher industry standards across the board.

 

  • Ensuring full commitment to the integrity and ethical conduct of the Company and its representatives within the communities its involved, whether they be local, regional, national and / international in nature. 

 

  • Ensuring open bilateral communication between the Company and all its stakeholders with the highest of integrity to protect the channels of communication from corrupt practices or “bad” actors who may compromise the communities, its partners and key stakeholders, as well as itself, from harm and unethical exploitation.

 

  • Assisting with developing new entrepreneurial ideas that challenge the status quo within the industry and help move those ideas towards strategic implementation.

 

 

ADVISORY MEMBERS

 

RAZIEL ZISMAN, Founding Member

Raziel Zisman is Executive Chairman of Alicanto Mining Corp., a private project-generating company with offices in Canada and Colombia, and of Fenix Geoconsult Ltd., a consulting company providing consulting and technical exploration services in Colombia, Armenia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He also serves on the board of directors of Advanced Explorations Inc. (TSXV: AXI), a resource development company focused on developing its Roche Bay and Tuktu Iron Ore Projects in one of the world’s largest developing iron ore districts, the Melville Peninsula in Nunavut.

 

He has a background in corporate and securities law as well as in merchant banking, having provided corporate finance advisory services and access to private and public capital to early stage companies.

 

Raziel grew up in Lima, Peru and studied development economics at Sussex University in the UK, followed by studies in Canada where he took a law degree at Osgoode Hall Law School as well as graduate degrees in economics, environmental studies and law. After clerking at the Supreme Court of Canada, he worked in the Toronto office of a leading American law firm, mostly in cross-border financings and mergers & acquisitions, gaining experience in the mining, energy, forestry and transportation sectors, and at major Canadian business-law firms, working primarily in the mining and natural resource sectors. He is a member of the bars of Ontario and New York.

 

He is a Director at the Canadian Council for the Americas (CCA) and is also a DIrector of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), where he also serves as a member of the Aboriginal Affairs and Securities committees.

 

 

CLAY HOES, Founding Member

Mr. Clay Hoes was most recently President and CEO of Forbes Royalty Corp., leading the development and launch of a natural resource royalty company which was placed on hold for the time being and may not launch due to the market. Clay provides due diligence and financing for producing resource companies - oil and gas, mining and industrial minerals.

 

Mr. Hoes served as a Portfolio Manager of RiverSource Investments, LLC. His industry experience covers industrial stocks on both the buy-side and the sell-side. Prior to joining American Express Financial Corporation in 1999, Mr. Hoes was a Vice President, Portfolio Manager, and Senior Metals Research Analyst at Scudder Kemper Investments in New York, covering global base metals, precious metals, and building materials. Before that, he served as a Precious Metals and Mining Analyst at Everen Securities. Mr. Hoes was also a Precious Metals Project Finance and Credit Analyst at Mocatta Metals Corp. He served at Pennzoil Oil and Gas as a development geologist, responsible for prospecting, drilling analysis, reservoir analysis, economic analysis, and budgeting. Mr. Hoes began his investment career in 1993. He has been a Director of Belo Sun Mining Corp since December 6, 2010.

 

In 1995, he was ranked by the Wall Street Journal as the number one Analyst for performance in the steel industry stocks. In 1997, Mr. Hoes was ranked by Brendan Wood International as the most knowledgeable institutional investor in precious metals stocks. He holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Geology from Hobart College and an M.S. in Mineral Economics from the Colorado School of Mines.

 

 

DON MCCOY, Founding Member

Mr. McCoy has 35 years experience in Hard Rock mining and Surface mining in the West as well as interspersed with commercial drilling and blasting. His specialties include opening of small vein precious and base metal mines, drilling and blasting Surface and Underground mines and quarries, and Blast Vibration Monitoring.

 

Mr. McCoy currently serves as the Operations Manager for Quartz Hill Mining Company, which is involved in exploration and development projects. He also currently serves as the Rocky Mountain Division General Manager of A&A Drilling and Blasting, Inc. responsible for drilling and blasting operations in Colorado.

 

Previously, he served as the Safety Supervisor at Ames Construction, Inc. for the Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mines. For the past 27 years, Mr McCoy has been the President of Geo-Kinetics Services, Inc. Geo-Kinetics Services, Inc., a mining and commercial blasting consulting company. They are currently contracted to a privately held, Canadian precious metal mining company. Their duties include project management, mine design, permitting, exploration project design, mine development and production, staff screening, hiring and corporate strategies. Their primary consulting specialties include mass rock blasting, seismographic monitoring, underground mine development and open-pit production.

 

Mr. McCoy received his Associates Degree from Glendale Community College with an emphasis on science and mathematics. Mr. McCoy is a member of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME), International Society of Explosives Engineers (ISEE), Geological Society of America (GSA) and Colorado Mining Association (CMA).

 

 

J.P. VAN HASSELT, Founding Member

Senior attorney specializing in Corporate Law, Mr. van Hasselt has over 20 years of experience developing businesses in leading U.S., Peruvian and multinational organizations. His experience includes mergers and acquisitions in Latin America and resulting taxation implications. He has a concentration in Corporate Law, Competition Law, Negotiations, Foreign Investment, Mining, Energy and Patent and Trademark Law. Mr. van Hasselt is bilingual, important in Cross-cultural negotiations, and has his Master in Comparative Law and experience in developing businesses in leading organizations in Peru and around the globe.

 

Mr. van Hasselt is currently the Manager of Legal Affairs (CLO) Chief Legal Officer for Haug, S.A., largest construction and metal mechanics company in Peru, servicing mainly the mining and oil industries, with responsibility on legal operations and corporate affairs. He is the main negotiator on all-important contracts with domestic and foreign clients. Mr. van Hasselt is the leading negotiations strategist with most large mining companies.

 

As Alumni Leader in Peru for The George Washington University (Washington, DC), Mr. van Hasselt directed the Global MBA to select Haug S.A. to conduct a Business Strategy program, which took place May 2013.

 

Mr. van Hasselt holds his law degree from The George Washington University, National Law Center, Washington, D.C.. He has been quoted and published in several articles and publications: ANDA News, Sintesis, and IP Worldwide. Mr. van Hasselt spoke in Lima Peru, 2007, on “Environmental Trusts” for the New York State Bar Association, along with many other speaking engagements. Mr. van Hasselt is fluent in Spanish and English and has a working proficiency with French.

 

 

GONZALO LEMUZ, Founding Member

Mr. Gonzalo Lemuz has over 20 years experience as an Economist Geologist. His specialties include gold deposits, epithermal systems, orogenic, mesothermal, porphyry Au and Intrusion Related Gold Systems.  He began as a geologist for mining exploration in Bolivia working with several Canadian Junior companies, such as: Altoro Gold Corporation and Dacapo Resources.  Mr. Lemuz has worked in South America, Central America and Eastern Europe (Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Kosovo, Armenia and Turkey).

 

Mr. Lemuz currently consults as a global geologist.  Mr. Lemuz worked as a country manager for Colombia Crest Gold Corp, a Canadian group in the Republic of Colombia.  He was responsible for the direction of the regional exploration work in addition to the direction of exploration in the Arabia project, parallel managing and overseeing all matters relating to community relations work.

 

In early 2000, Mr. Lemuz moved to the Republic of Peru to work as a Senior Geologist for Anglo Gold Ashanti to help increase their knowledge and experience in Geology.  He has been instrumental in the evaluation of several deposits in the Republic of Peru and architect in the sale of the Paron project, Latingold, to the company Coronet Metals.  Mr. Lemuz, as chief geologist for Eastern Europe in Lydian Resources (currently Lidian International), discovered Amulzar gold deposit, located in the Republic of Armenia, which currently has between Inferred and Indicated resources with more than 3 million ounces.

 

Mr. Lemuz graduated in Geology from the University of San Andres, Bolivia.  Mr. Lemuz currently resides in Lima, Peru.  Mr. Lemuz is a member of the Institute of Mining Engineers of Peru and Association of Geologists of Bolivia.  

 

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